Annette King copped the hospital pass from hell. Dear Leader has probably done it to snuff out any chance of a leadership challenge from King.

She now has to daily in the house defend the indefensible.

[quote]For those warning that the poorly drafted Electoral Finance Bill will have unintended and undemocratic consequences, Labour's new Justice Minister yesterday offered her own unique, but somewhat eyebrow-raising solution: the Annette King Law of Common Sense.

It does not sound particularly comforting nor especially convincing. But it does have a No 8 fencing wire sort of pragmatic Kiwi fix-it charm about it.

Essentially Ms King's maxim goes like this: if the law is an ass, then apply the law of common sense. If the law could be interpreted as producing silly outcomes, then assume those were not what the law intended.

Then, just to make everyone feel really good about the state of the country's electoral laws, Ms King also told Parliament that the existing Electoral Act had loopholes "you could drive a bulldozer through".[/quote]

Unfortunately for Annette King the problem with common sense is that it isn't that common and certainly has never been exhibited by any politician anywhere, ever!